At this stage the financial difficulties of the Dominican government
induced the Belgians to sell their rights to American interests, which
formed the San Domingo Improvement Company to take them over. American
engineers accordingly finished the road to Santiago. The rack-rail
feature being undesirable, plans were made for the construction of the
road as an adhesion road. No further rack-rail was built and one of
the portions constructed was converted, but two short stretches of
rack-rail remained near Puerto Plata, one of one mile and another of
three miles. The Central Dominican Railway Company was incorporated
for the operation of the road.
During the controversy later carried on between the Dominican
government and the San Domingo Improvement Company the Company
contended that the road had cost in the neighborhood of $3,000,000, or
about $600,000 in excess of the sums realized by the sale of the bonds
assigned by the government to defray the cost of construction. The
dispute found its settlement in the protocol of January 31, 1903, by
which the Dominican government agreed to purchase all the holdings of
the Improvement Company.
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